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Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

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Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#61

Post by sofixa »

nabla9 wrote: post #46
sofixa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that business leaders can be ever considered genuine political or cultural voice or actor is the problem. Silicon Valley and hacker culture has created an atmosphere of business politicians and for some reason hackers take them seriously and don't laugh at their faces. > Traditionally business people don't get into discussions of culture or politics directly. They might work in the background, but never di…

I did not speak against using money to get political power. Your examples honest power plays. Using raw power to benefit themself. This was about propaganda and criticism of those who believe it.

How was deposing Hawaii's kingdom to be able to exploit the land for pineapples an "honest power play"?

Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#62

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

shafyy wrote: post #38
downWidOutaFite wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There's no principle involved. It's all polarized partisan politics. Your "particularly dysfunctional" is extremely in the eye of the beholder. The rich and powerful silicon valley CEO/VC guys tearing the country apart over their woke crusade are just as ideologically irrational as the next twitter blue check.

This. If you believe for one second that money and power hungry people have any kind of principles, you have not been paying attention. Cancel culture, woke, left, right, center, free speech – they will say whatever to get what they want on these topics, and change their opinion the next day without any real consequences. Welcome to late-stage capitalism.

I think it depends on the person. Elon Musk changes his mind a lot, but PG generally seems pretty consistent.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to change your mind, either.

My guess is that if you carefully read PG's criticisms of woke culture, they are narrow enough that they wouldn't apply to what YC does against misbehaving VCs. For example, if you read between the lines, this essay does a good job of explaining some problems with woke culture: https://paulgraham.com/conformism.html But it doesn't really apply to misbehaving VCs as much.

What's the specific critique of cancel culture PG made, that he's being hypocritical with? Can you give a verbatim quote that displays the supposed hypocrisy, to ensure that you're not misrepresenting his position?

Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#63

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

wslh wrote: post #49
shafyy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If you believe for one second that money and power hungry people have any kind of principles, you have not been paying attention. Cancel culture, woke, left, right, center, free speech – they will say whatever to get what they want on these topics, and change their opinion the next day without any real consequences. Welcome to late-stage capitalism.

> Welcome to late-stage capitalism. Good reads/resources about this? I started reading "What's Our Problem" [1] but find it difficult to find "non-partisan" resources nowadays. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102146148-what-s-our-pro...

I don't think there is any scholarly basis for the term "late-stage capitalism". It's just a meme that kids started using. Power-hungry, unprincipled people will exist regardless of a country's economic system. But people are very imaginative in attributing various social ills to capitalism in particular.

Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#64

Post by high_na_euv »

Gud wrote: post #52
thierrydamiba wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re vastly underestimating how hard it is to pick winners and stifle competition. Using your logic, if it was so easy why didn’t Google stop OpenAI? Meta? Perplexity?

Maybe they killed a hundred similar companies and those three slipped through?

Hundreds of Facebooks?

Very unlikely

Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#65

Post by brudgers »

neilv wrote: post #5

> > Y Combinator was the sort of unforgiving power player that remembered the names of investors who had crossed portfolio companies in the past, or who had disseminated unflattering portraits of YC, and blacklisted them from any YC dealings, or from the minds of YC founders. Do we have to be careful what we say on HN?

If you want to associate with the people at YC, it probably makes some sense to behave like the kind of person that people at YC are likely to want to associate with.

The Adchemy’s investors were funding a lawsuit against a startup. I imagine from YC’s perspective, that kind of thing was considered bad for the ecosystem.

By which I mean nobody involved was going to make money. There’s no blood in a stone. The lawsuit was not in anyone’s business interest. The article states it was even contrary to an unwritten rule of the startup culture.

Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#66

Post by ZeroGravitas »

fallingknife wrote: post #37

So 3 employees of a company (with "Ad" in the name) decided to leave and found a startup (also with "Ad" in the name). The (failing by all accounts) company they left got butt hurt over this and decided to bully them by using their larger size to sue them out of existence. Their plan was to win by exhausting the funds of the smaller company, not to win on the merits of the case (which was obviously dead in the water…

Meritocracy in action.

Hopefully they never used this power to ruin people's businesses with a phone call for anything less noble than * checks notes * protecting their investment in a rival business.

Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#67

Post by wslh »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #63
wslh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Welcome to late-stage capitalism. Good reads/resources about this? I started reading "What's Our Problem" [1] but find it difficult to find "non-partisan" resources nowadays. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102146148-what-s-our-pro...

I don't think there is any scholarly basis for the term "late-stage capitalism". It's just a meme that kids started using. Power-hungry, unprincipled people will exist regardless of a country's economic system. But people are very imaginative in attributing various social ills to capitalism in particular.

Beyond the specific term, there is a "sign of the times" we are living. Nowadays the issue with political sciences and philosophy is the partisan, left-right spectrum view that it is difficult to break in in discussions (including HN).

Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#68

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

RGamma wrote: post #59
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, back when I was looking for work, a couple of companies asked for my HN handle (actually, it's one of the reasons that I got an account, here). It was fairly obvious, that I would not be considered, if I didn't have one.

That explains a lot.

Eh. We all have our origin stories.

Turned out that I didn't really feel like working with companies that require HN handles, and they didn't feel like working with past-their-prime engineers, so it's all good.

I stuck around, and folks generally seem to feel I'm a decent member, here. A few curmudgeons don't like me, but, when you're "on the spectrum," you get pretty used to folks not liking you, for no discernible reason. I've found that being true to myself, means that it doesn't really matter, all that much. I've had really dangerous people not like me, IRL, so this joint is Amateur Hour.

I try to be a decent member here, and not bring darkness (I'm quite capable of it). Some folks think that makes me "stuffy," or "snobby."

Whatever creams your Twinkie. I'm actually a pretty decent person, and it's probably worth it, to get to know me. I won't make you rich, but I'm also no threat to anyone (and have no desire to be). I believe in helping folks, and trying to keep humanity first and foremost. HN handles are people, not NPCs (for the most part -Ed.), and I try to keep that in mind, when I post, here.

Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#69

Post by djbusby »

brudgers wrote: post #53
cj wrote: post #6

If you’re wondering what to take away from this article: the simple take away is that YC has the power to get what it wants, for the companies it wants. If you happen to be in YC’s good graces, they will reward you in ways described in the article. If you’re not, they won’t take the time. I was in YC in 2012 (2 yrs after the founder writing this article, and one of the last years PG was directly involved). By that ti…

for companies YC likes and believes in post-accelerator. YC definitely discriminates from that perspective- they choose which startups they think have the most promise during any given batch, and they give those founders preferential treatment. Based on what I’ve read, this seems backwards, I think YC chooses founders with the most promise and gives their companies preferential treatment because promise is only the a…

IME the earlier a company is in their lifecycle the more the team matters than the idea. So, choosing founders seems The Right Way

Re: Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley

#70

Post by [deleted] »

thierrydamiba wrote: post #51
worksonmymach wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to know who "wins" in a scaled YC vs. the oceanic tide that is the SP500 and it's capital sucking and brain sucking ways. A Google can stop 10000 potential startups simply with RSUs and cap another 10000 by buying them out (which is kinda good for YC but not really... they'd rather own a chunk of a Google).

I think you’re vastly underestimating how hard it is to pick winners and stifle competition. Using your logic, if it was so easy why didn’t Google stop OpenAI? Meta? Perplexity?

[deleted]
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